The brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings may have been headed for New York to party after the attack, the New York police commissioner said Wednesday.

“There was some information that they may have been intent on coming to New York, but not to continue doing what they’re doing,” Kelly told reporters at police headquarters. “The information that we received said something about a party, or having a party.”

A man authorities say was carjacked by the brothers has told investigators he believes one of the brothers said “Manhattan” before he escaped, but investigators have cautioned that it may have been a language mixup because the brothers were speaking with Russian dialects.

The surviving brother has told investigators that the pair acted alone, were inspired by an al Qaeda propaganda magazine, and plotted the bombing to defend Islam after the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed early Friday after a shootout with police in the Boston suburbs. His younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar, is in fair condition at a Boston hospital. The brothers killed a campus patrol officer and carjacked an SUV before the shootout, authorities have said.

Homemade explosives and one semi-automatic handgun believed to belong to the brothers were recovered by investigators, officials said. The gun’s serial number was obliterated, but Massachusetts state police were working to reveal the number.

Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

Cj Gunther / EPA

Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

Launch slideshow

Cambridge police, meanwhile, released a booking photo of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from a 2009 domestic violence arrest during which he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

In a closed-door session on Wednesday, members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed by the FBI and other federal agencies on the ongoing investigation. Among the issues discussed is what federal authorities knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia as well as a timeline on his radicalization. 

Also, according to an interview with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Mich., the ranking member on the committee, it was learned that the device used to trigger the explosives was a remote control for a toy, not a cellphone as thought earlier.

Nine days after the twin blasts near the marathon finish line, authorities early Wednesday reopened the section of Boylston Street in central Boston where the first bomb went off.

The site of the explosion has been paved with fresh cement and is surrounded by orange construction cones but opened to foot traffic. People stopped to pay respects and take photos.

“The people of Boston are strong like cement. Strong people. They get together when it’s needed,” said Robert Bibias, a city masonry worker who early Wednesday cemented over what had been a blood-stained crime scene.

Thousands of people, including police from all over the country, gathered at the baseball stadium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a memorial service for Sean Collier, the campus patrol officer who authorities said was shot to death by the Tsarnaev brothers before the carjacking and shootout.

With police snipers holding positions atop nearby buildings, Vice President Joe Biden called the perpetrators of the marathon bombing “twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis.”

“The irony is, we read about these events, we experience them, but the truth is, on every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing,” he said. “It is not gaining adherents.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev is seen in a booking photo from a 2009 arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

The vice president went on: “We will not hunker down. We will not be intimidated.”

His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Boylston Street on Wednesday.

Private funerals were held Tuesday for Collier and for Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed near the finish line. Two other people were killed at the marathon, and more than 200 were injured, including 39 who were still hospitalized Wednesday.

In Russia, the brothers’ aunt said that a Boston-area mosque has refused to hold a funeral for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

American authorities have told the family that they can have Tsarnaev’s body, and an uncle approached the mosque to request a burial and funeral but was declined, said the aunt, Patimat Suleimanova.

She said that she did not know the name of the mosque but that it was one the family attended. A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., has said that Tsarnaev attended and occasionally caused disruptions and that mosque leaders threatened to kick him out.

A spokesman for the Cambridge mosque, Yusufi Vali, said the mosque had not heard from the family.

“There were some reports out there that we had rejected his burial, and — or the family had reached out to us, rather. And to our knowledge, you know, the family has not reached out to us,” he said on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

The mosque, run by the Islamic Society of Boston, has also said that congregants have been questioned by the FBI. The mosque did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday from NBC News.

Earlier this week, Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a separate institution, told The Huffington Post: “I would not be willing to do a funeral for him. This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim.”

NBC News' Adrienne Mong, Alastair Jamieson, Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

Related:

• Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy
• Wife of dead bombing suspect in 'absolute shock'
• FBI quizzes members of mosque suspect attended

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:14 AM EDT

LONDON -- British authorities ordered more police on the streets for Sunday's London Marathon in the wake of the Boston bombings, but experts warned it was "virtually impossible" to guarantee the safety of the hundreds of thousands who will attend the event. 

A police source said additional patrols by uniformed officers were planned to reassure the public in the wake of deadly attack.

While British security officials have been in contact with their counterparts in the U.S. following Monday's blasts, the U.K.'s threat level for international terrorism hasn't been changed from "substantial" -- the third of five categories on the scale.

At least 500,000 spectators are expected to watch Sunday’s race and Prince Harry is due to hand medals to the winners.

The course takes the 36,000 runners right past major sites - including Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace – as well as through Canary Wharf, the giant riverside financial district targeted twice by the Irish militants in the 1990s.

Even in a city that has spent recent decades under the threat of bombs – first from Irish Republicans, more recently jihadists – such a public event poses a security headache.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police, said that the force was "taking more more precautions than we might have done otherwise."

"We will make sure we've got more officers on the street looking after people, making sure they're kept safe, but we've no reason to think they'd be any less safe than before the terrible events in Boston,." he said. "We'd be professionally irresponsible if we didn't take some reasonable steps."

Sang Tan / AP

Backdropped by Buckingham Palace, a jogger crosses the Mall in London on Tuesday. It will be transformed into the finishing area for Sunday's London Marathon.

Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones declined to give details of what changes might be made, if any, to the event's security plan. She said officers would “continue to review all the intelligence” available.

London Marathon chief executive Nick Bitel insisted the event would go ahead. “We will be reviewing our security in the coming days, in the light of what has happened in Boston," Bitel told ITV News.

"I don't want to talk about specifics of what security we have had in the past, or will have on Sunday. All I can say is that it will be of an appropriate level to meet whatever threat assessment is made, in conjunction with the police," he added.

Hugh Robertson, a British government minister, called for crowds and runners to attend in London as normal.

“The very best way to show solidarity with Boston is to get out there on the streets of London to cheer the runners on and to show that we won’t be defeated by this sort of activity,” he told the London Evening Standard newspaper.

Runners will be encouraged to wear a black ribbon at the start of the race to honor victims of the Boston bombing, and a 30-second silence will be observed, organizers said Wednesday. 

NBC News national security analyst Michael Leiter said it was “virtually impossible” to make a marathon completely secure because of its 26.2-mile long route.

“You just have to do the best you can to keep people safe and maintain resilience," he said. “It’s important we don’t alter our lives because that provides the terrorist – domestic, international, whoever it may be – with a huge victory.”

Helmut Spahn, executive director of the International Centre for Sport Security, told Reuters: "There has to be a clear analysis of the situation and certainly no over-reaction. More police, more military is not always the best solution. To have a 100 percent security is very, very difficult if not near impossible.”

Sang Tan / AP

A sign warns of road closures linked to the forthcoming London Marathon.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 17, 2013 2:29 AM EDT

Slideshow: The life and times of Margaret Thatcher

John Minihan / Getty Images

A pioneer for her sex, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister of the United Kingdom for almost 12 years. Take a look back at her life and career.

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LONDON - Police were on standby for street violence after protesters pledged to "celebrate" the death of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with a party at the scene of a 1990 riot against one of her most unpopular policies.

Senior police officers have already launched an operation to prevent disorder surrounding her televised funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, which is due to be attended by Britain’s queen and world leaders. Every living former U.S. president is invited.

With tight security around the official event, protest groups have threatened to gather on Saturday in London’s Trafalgar Square, where thousands rioted in March 1990 in protest against the introduction of the Poll Tax – a despised local government tax system that proved to be one of the main triggers of Thatcher’s political downfall in November that year.

Class War, which posted details of the event on Twitter, told the London Evening Standard that protesters planned to install an effigy of Thatcher on a vacant plinth in the square, which will then be toppled in a moment that a spokesman said would be a moment of “liberation and cathartic retribution.”

On Facebook, a group called “Maggie's good riddance party” called on demonstrators to gather at the funeral, with some attendees planning to turn their backs on Thatcher’s casket as it was taken through the streets. 

Thatcher, the country’s longest serving prime minister in a century and the first woman to hold the job, died on Monday after suffering a stroke at the age of 87.

She is both revered and reviled in Britain, where her free market reforms led a national economic resurgence but also created pockets of deep social deprivation in areas where former state-run industries such as coal mines and steel works were shut down or sold off with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

Steve Eason / Hulton Archive via Getty Images, file

Police and demonstrators clash in London's Trafalgar Square during rioting, which arose from a demonstration against the Poll Tax March 31, 1990.

Within hours of her death, there were violent scenes at celebratory parties, prompting much introspection in Britain about how to mark with the passing of an important but controversial national figure.

At her own request, she will not have an official state funeral - a decision that appeared to acknowledge that a government-funded event would be controversial and unpopular – and insisted there should be no military fly-past.

However, Wednesday’s ceremony is shaping up to the grandest of its kind since the funeral of wartime leader Winston Churchill in 1964.

Although groups cheering Thatcher’s death are in a minority, police are monitoring social media to gather intelligence on the scale and nature of any protests.

"Some say Margaret Thatcher is a divisive figure, but that's part of the tapestry of policing these events,” Metropolitan Police Commander Christine Jones told the Daily Telegraph. “If people come to London to cause trouble and commit crime we will deal with you.”

In a statement, she added: “The right to protest is one that must be upheld, however, we will work to do that whilst balancing the rights of those who wish to pay their respects and those who wish to travel about London as usual.”

The force is using its experience from handling the London Olympics in July to deal with the event. Blanket stop-and-search powers are expected to be introduced in the run up to the funeral.

The force also has a Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, which monitors disturbed individuals are obsessed with public figures.

Saturday’s protest is being supported by other groups such as the All London Anarchist Revolutionary Mob, the London Evening Standard reported.

“Miners will be coming down from the north, Wapping printers, steel workers - it will be a big crowd. We are talking thousands,” Class War founder Ian Bone told the newspaper.

 “It has been planned for years, always for the first Saturday after her death, and it is in the right place, where the Poll Tax riots were taking place.”

Jones added that dealing with threats of disorder was “part of the normal daily business of London.”

“We deal with more than 3,500 protests or facilitated events a year so this is nothing new,” she added.

Police are also liaising with Britain’s intelligence agencies amid speculation the funeral could be targeted by Irish Republican terrorists – although the overall terror threat level remained unchanged.

Thatcher was targeted by an Irish Republican Army bomb in 1984 in retaliation for her tough stance on the organization, and saw two close political friends killed in terrorist attacks.

Meanwhile, opponents are doing their best to get the "Wizard of Oz" song "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" to the top of Britain’s version of the Billboard Hot 100. Midweek sales already have it in the Top 5 in the wake of a Facebook campaign.

That means the BBC will have to play the song during its chart show on Sunday. Conservative politicians have called on the broadcaster to not give it airtime. 

The BBC says its chart show is a factual account of what the British public has been buying and they will make a decision about whether to play the song when the final chart positions are clear on Sunday.

NBC News' Duncan Golestani contributed to this report.

Related:

'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher, who led conservative resurgence in Britain, dies at 87

Debate over funeral for 'loved, hated' former PM Thatcher divides Britain

'Wizard of Oz' song hits UK charts after Margaret Thatcher's death

SEOUL -- The United States and South Korea were on high alert for a North Korean missile launch on Thursday as the hermit kingdom turned its attention to celebrating its ruling Kim dynasty and appeared to tone down rhetoric of impending war.

Despite threats it will attack U.S. bases and the South in response to any hostile acts, North Korea started to welcome a stream of visitors for Monday's birthday celebrations of its founding father, Kim Il Sung.

North Korea has stationed as many as five medium-range missiles on its east coast, according to defense assessments made by Washington and Seoul, possibly in readiness for a test launch that would demonstrate its ability to hit U.S. bases on Guam.

Most observers say Pyongyang has no intention of igniting a conflict that could bring its own destruction but warn of the risks of miscalculation on the highly militarized Korean peninsula.

In London, G8 foreign ministers condemned North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology "in the strongest possible terms" in an agreed statement.

There did not appear to be any signs of panic in Seoul, the South Korean capital, and financial markets appeared to shrug off the risk of conflict with stocks posting a third day of gains.

Taiwan appeared to become the first country to warn its citizens against travelling to South Korea after a warning from Pyongyang that foreigners should leave, but hotels were reporting brisk business.

Pyongyang issued a statement that appeared to be tinged with regret over the closure of the joint Kaesong industrial zone that was shuttered when it ordered its workers out this week, terming the North-South Korean venture "the pinnacle of General Kim Jong Il's limitless love for his people and brothers".

The statement on the country's KCNA news agency blamed South Korean President Park Geun-hye for bringing the money-spinning venture to "the brink of shutting down."

Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung's son, ruled North Korea until his death in December 2011. He was succeeded by Kim Jong Un, the third of his line to preside over one of the world's poorest and most heavily militarized countries.

Since taking office, the 30-year-old has staged two long-range rocket launches and a nuclear weapons test. The nuclear test in February triggered U.N. sanctions that Pyongyang has termed a hostile act and a precursor to invasion.

For over a month, Pyongyang has issued an almost daily series of threats to the United States and South Korea, most recently warning foreigners to leave the South due to an impending "thermonuclear" war.

Slideshow: North Korea's young leader, Kim Jong Un

The youngest son of Kim Jong Il succeeded his late father in 2011, becoming the third member of his family to rule the unpredictable and reclusive communist state.

Launch slideshow

Apart from the swipe at South Korea's new president, verbal threats appeared to fall off as KCNA listed arrivals for the upcoming birthday celebrations, naming an eclectic mix ranging from Chinese businessmen to Cold War-era enthusiasts of its socialist monarchy and official ideology of "Juche," or self-reliance.

Reinforcing the rule of the Kim dynasty and the legitimacy of the latest Kim to hold power in Pyongyang is a key tenet of North Korea's ideology.

It was the first anniversary on Thursday of Kim's official ascent to power, although he became de-facto leader immediately after his father's death.

The North's rhetoric has pushed the United States, the guarantor of South Korea's security, to move more military assets into the region in response to the rising threat levels.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned on Wednesday that the North was "skating very close to a dangerous line" with its threats and provocations, and said the United States, currently involved in military exercises with South Korea, was prepared to respond to any moves by Pyongyang.

"We have every capacity to deal with any action that North Korea would take, to protect this country and the interests of this country and our allies," Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon.

China, the North's only major diplomatic ally, has watched the situation evolving on its doorstep with concern.

"China respects North Korea, but it also holds the responsibility of preserving peace in Northeast Asia," the Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party's People's Daily, said in an editorial.

"Pyongyang should drop its illusions that it can make the world stay silent over its desire for nuclear arms through its hard-line stance and deceptions. We believe the North still has a chance and we regret that it has become mired in this crisis. We hope the crisis is only temporary."

Related:

Who is N. Korea's secretive Kim Jong Un? Here's what we know 

After years of threats, 'positive thinking' keeps S. Koreans going

PhotoBlog: North Koreans celebrate their rulers with song and dance

Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 11, 2013 3:45 AM EDT

A U.S. military pilot was killed when his F-16 fighter jet crashed while on a night flight over mountainous terrain in Afghanistan, officials said Thursday.

There was no indication of enemy fire in the area at the time of the Wednesday’s crash, in the east of the country.

“While the cause of the crash is under investigation, initial reporting indicates there was no insurgent activity in the area at the time of the crash,” an official with the U.S.-led international coalition, ISAF, said in a statement.

While there have been F-16 accidents and even one deadly crash recently - one crashed into the Adriatic earlier this year- such an incident is very rare in Afghanistan, where helicopters are more at risk.

Meanwhile, officials in the country’s Ghazni province said 6 people were killed, including four local police force members, by a NATO airstrike on Wednesday evening.

The Afghan Local Police (ALP) were attacked while patrolling in the village of Sulaimanzai, in the district of Deh Yak.

North Korea is moving a medium-range missile to a site in the east of the country, a U.S. intelligence official said Thursday as tensions with the nuclear-armed state continued to escalate.

The official declined to say where the Musudan missile was headed, but the North has used a site near the Russian border on the coast for its missile tests in the past.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told lawmakers Thursday that the missile had "considerable range" but not enough to hit the U.S. mainland, according to The Associated Press.

The news came hours after North Korea's military warned that it had been authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons -- the latest in a string of war cries against America in recent weeks.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the military statement said.

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula rose in December when the North test-fired a rocket and increased again when it tested a nuclear bomb in February.

Russia joined the ranks of countries voicing concern at the escalating crisis, saying the North's disregard for United Nations’ restrictions was unacceptable.

The U.S. is sending an advanced anti-ballistic missile system to Guam to protect American military sites, officials said Wednesday.

The Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system is expected to arrive at the U.S. territory in the Pacific within two weeks.

'Real and clear danger'
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the North’s provocations were "a real and clear danger and threat" to U.S. interests and stressed that Washington was taking them seriously.

"We are doing everything we can ... to defuse that situation on the peninsula," Hagel said after a speech Wednesday at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C.

"I hope the North will ratchet this very dangerous rhetoric down," he said, adding that there is a pathway to peace but only if Pyongyang decides to be "a responsible member of the world community."

On Thursday, North Korea warned its military had been authorized to carry out "cutting-edge, smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear strikes to protect itself against the United States.

"The moment of explosion is approaching fast. No one can say a war will break out in Korea or not and whether it will break out today or tomorrow," read the statement of an unnamed military spokesman.

The statement, which was carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), informed the White House and the Pentagon that "the merciless operation of its revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified."

It also made reference to U.S. jet sorties over the Korean Peninsula, which Pentagon officials have said are part of routine, joint military drills with South Korea.

"The U.S. high-handed hostile policy toward the DPRK aimed to encroach upon its sovereignty and the dignity of its supreme leadership and bring down its social system is being implemented through actual military actions without hesitation," the North’s statement read.

Meanwhile, a former U.N. official who visited North Korea last year reported that officials there said they could restart the Yongbyon reactor in three months. That is significantly quicker than many U.S. nuclear experts believe a restart would take.

U.S. officials said they did not believe the operation would be a huge engineering challenge.

A restart would, however, be significant, as it would give North Korea the capability to make weapons-grade plutonium again. The reactor was shut down in 2007.

"North Korea's assertion that it intends to bring Yongbyon back online can't be easily written off as an insurmountable hurdle," one U.S. official said.

The Associated Press and NBC News' Marc Smith, Alastair Jamieson, Andrea Mitchell and Becky Bratu contributed to this report.

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Full North Korea coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu Apr 4, 2013 4:17 AM EDT

One of North Korea's top decision-making bodies is setting guidelines that call nuclear weapons "the nation's life" that won't be traded even for "billions of dollars,” The Associated Press reported.

The statement Sunday came after a plenary meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers' Party attended by leader Kim Jong Un and other officials, the AP said.

It also followed a declaration on Saturday that it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea, the latest in a string of increasingly belligerent outbursts from the isolated state.

Sunday’s statement says nuclear weapons aren't "goods for getting U.S. dollars" or a "political bargaining chip." Outside analysts have said Pyongyang raises worries over its nuclear ambitions to spur nuclear-disarmament-for-aid talks, the AP said.

Slideshow: Glimpses into the hermit kingdom of North Korea

David Guttenfelder / AP

As chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, David Guttenfelder has had unprecedented access to communist North Korea. Here's a rare look at daily life in the secretive country.

Launch slideshow

It said Pyongyang will also increase work to build up the economy. Kim has made fixing the moribund economy a focus.

On Thursday the U.S. sent two nuclear-capable bombers to South Korea, where they dropped inert munitions in a military exercise. The flight sparked an angry response from the North, which declared on Friday that it was preparing rockets aimed at American bases in South Korea and the Pacific.

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Analysis: North Korea's threats predictable but Kim Jong Un is not

North Korea's Internet? For most, online access doesn't exist

PhotoBlog: Pyongyang marchers: 'Rip the puppet traitors to death!'

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 31, 2013 9:38 AM EDT